


all about you

by tooshy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Insecurity, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29822520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tooshy/pseuds/tooshy
Summary: "If I'm single by the time I get my first white hair, I'm marrying you," Donghyuck declares. "And we're getting one of those cute dogs you like.""A Beagle.""A Beagle."(or, five times Mark doesn't think things are gonna work out for Donghyuck and him, and the one time he does.)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 182





	all about you

**1.** ****

Maybe Mark should move out. That way, he wouldn’t be Jaemin’s roommate anymore and his attendance to these ridiculously expensive, noisy clubs wouldn’t be verging on compulsory. They would probably still be friends, however, and him not coming to Jaemin’s birthday party wouldn’t go unnoticed, and he would feel guilty the next day for not being there, _and_ Jaemin would most likely use it to guilt-trip him into doing all kinds of shit for the following six months. So, definitely not the best plan.

Just when he’s thinking of how to fake being sick next year, he hears the scraping of the stool next to him, barely managing not to go unheard under the music. The next second, a guy’s taking a seat and laying his head over his crossed arms on the bar. Mark's eyes travel over the back of his head and the length of his shoulders, sporting the hint of a smile as he puts a name to the face—or well, the nape.

"Donghyuck?"

All he gets in response is a groan, and then silence. Looks like he’ll have to try harder. 

Mark scans the room from where he’s sitting, searching for a face that had started to become familiar whenever Donghyuck was around. A part of him, one that’s selfish and colored green, feels relieved when he can’t see him anywhere near, but he simply clears his throat and fakes self-control. "Did you come with Jiwoo?"

Donghyuck groans once again, forehead still pressed against the bar top. One of his hands feels around the surface for a couple of seconds, before whining over having forgotten to bring his drink with him.

"Here, you can have mine," Mark says, pushing his can of cola closer to him. Turning his head, Donghyuck faces him, pout in place and gaze glum. Mark would also go out on a limb and guess he's slightly drunk. "You're so nice, Mark. Why can’t I just date you?"

Mark thinks back to the housewarming party Jaemin insisted on throwing for them last year, Donghyuck coming to him an hour in and introducing himself as his roommate’s lab partner. There wasn’t a can on its way to lukewarm sitting between them, but several empty shot glasses on a beaten up coffee table. Not a meter separating them, but the space between their breaths. Hands now kept to themselves, then on Mark's waist, Donghyuck's neck, one of their legs between the other's thighs, and the temperature rising. Making out on Mark’s living room couch and never bringing it up after that night, but clearly changing the way they orbit around each other.

Here they are, tracing the same curved path around each other, each time coming closer and closer.

"I'm way out of your league," Mark says sarcastically, trying for a joke, but Donghyuck just slumps further down on his seat.

"No need to rub it in my face."

Mark remembers thinking Donghyuck looks best in the dark, when he's all angles and shapes half illuminated and half imagined. Right now, with half of Donghyuck's face squished against laminate and half lit up by the club's blue lights, he can't find much reason to go against his past self.

A hand reaches out for Mark's chin, Donghyuck's thumb gently setting on its underside and every other finger curling around his hold, only to bring Mark closer to his face. And so it repeats: just the space between their breaths, hands grabbing, eyes searching. 

"If I'm still single by the time I get my first white hair, I'm marrying you," he declares. "And we're getting one of those cute dogs you like."

Mark laughs the only way he knows how, loud and hearty, and takes hold of the hand on his chin to rest it on the bar top next to Donghyuck's head. "A Beagle," he fills in the blank.

"A Beagle," Donghyuck nods, looking far too solemn. He straightens up to take a sip of the can, and Mark thinks that's it, but then he frowns and goes on. 

"l mean, you'll probably already have a—a dog and a life with someone else, but I'm just gonna…" He presses a hand to his lips, hiccups, and continues. "I'll show up at your door one day, all sad and alone and holding up a single white hair, and you'll feel _so_ much pity that you'll leave your hot model husband and your adorable purebred puppy to run away with me, so we can get married overseas." His eyes suddenly widen and he starts snapping his fingers, seemingly trying to recall something. "Oh, what's that country you wanna go to called? Cold and awful but has gay rights and city names that have like, fifteen letters."

Mark tries and fails to tamper down his laughter, feeling over the moon as he answers. "Iceland."

"Iceland," Donghyuck smiles, all teeth and eyes alight. 

This is all they do. They go around in circles, because meeting in the middle would mean colliding. Sometimes, Mark ponders if that would be so terrible, because crashing into Donghyuck doesn't sound half bad to him.

Brave because he's drunk and drunk because he's love-struck, Mark pushes just a bit more. "You know, I could always just _divorce_ my husband and then pity-marry you. No need to run away."

Donghyuck stares at him resting his chin on one hand, and then sighs. "You even make bureaucracy sound fun."

"I wouldn't let you wed me just like that, though," Mark mock-frowns. "I need courting."

That seems to do the trick, getting Donghyuck to stand up with a jump. "Might as well get a head start."

He retrieves his wallet from his jean’s front pocket and, after struggling for a second, pulls out a crumpled coupon that he nearly shoves in Mark's nose. "Wanna leave this place and have the best first date of your life?"

Mark cranes his neck backwards so he's able to make out the red and yellow paper a breathwidth away. "McDonald's?"

"Is that a yes?"

Donghyuck seems to be sold on the idea of eventually heading headfirst into the wreckage. Who is Mark to deny him it?

**2.**

"They're two different body parts." 

"No, listen. It's two butt cheeks, one ass."

"Yeah? Then why are they divided, genius? We have one butt on each leg."

"That's the dumbest thing you've ever said. Mark agrees with me, right?" 

Mark looks away from the movie he's only half watching, too busy fighting off his eyelids closing of their own accord to pay attention. He squints at Jungwoo from his head’s place on Donghyuck's lap, propping his chin on one of his knees as he hums. "Yeah, I'm with Hyuck on this one." 

The armchair Jungwoo's on creaks dangerously when he throws himself back on it. The dramatics of his huffing combined with Donghyuck's loud _I told you so_ speech mitigate whatever was left of Mark's drowsiness, now awake enough by the time Jungwoo speaks up again. "That doesn't count. Of course he's gonna agree with you." 

Mark frowns. Donghyuck and him tend to stand on opposite sides of the spectrum of opinions, which means bickering comes as a reflex and they will fight tooth and nail over anything and everything. Donghyuck's determination is shatterproof: frustrating when it comes between them, but admittedly mildly entertaining when it involves other people. Mark finds that he likes to walk into arguments, throw his arm around Donghyuck's shoulders and agree with whatever he's defending—if only for how particularly smug he looks when that happens, as if getting Mark's approval sets his logic in stone.

 _Of course he's gonna agree with you._ What does he mean, _of course_? Has he overdone it to the point that his willingness with anything involving Donghyuck has somehow become Mark sucking up to him? Is that what their friends think?

Some rattling can be heard from the kitchen, and Jungwoo seems to remember Jaehyun's in there, heating up the leftovers of a pizza they ordered a couple hours ago _._ Mark doesn't think he's ever seen him get on his feet that quick, and he hears his retreating footsteps followed by a _hyung, do you think we have one or two butts?_

Mark lays his head back on Donghyuck's legs, ear to thigh and nose to knee, and a moment later a hand settles on the apple of his cheek.

"Thank you." Donghyuck's voice, like this, is his favorite: cooing, mellow, not quite a whisper but still gentler than usual, coaxing him to fall in deeper. His knuckles follow its example, softly rubbing his cheekbone back and forth. "Always having my back."

Mark blinks up at him and wonders if he will always see it as that, him having his back, or if one day it'll turn out to be an off-putting lack of spine. Before his brain has a chance to poke and prod at that thought much longer, he brings a hand up so he can wrap his fingers around Donghyuck's nape and guide his face closer to his own, lifting his own head just to stop a space away. He rubs their noses together a bit harder than he should and presses them against each other until Donghyuck lets out a laugh. 

He can go back to wondering tomorrow. 

("Jungwoo is right, though. We have two butts."

"Oh, not you too.")

**3.**

Finding a second pair of shoes next to Jaemin’s when he gets home has never been out of the ordinary, if only lately increasingly more usual, so the mustard colored sneakers Mark notices when he walks in don’t surprise him. What does, however, is looking up from toeing off his Nikes to spot Jaemin napping on their couch and Donghyuck nowhere to be found. Usually, he’ll open the door to some argumentably loud after-class FIFA match (Since Donghyuck found out it’s the one game Jaemin gets competitive over, he exploits it any chance he gets), but the only noise he’s greeted with is his roommate’s heavy breathing and the background music of _Neko Atsume_. Wait.

“Hi, hyungie. You look like shit.” 

Well, there he is. 

Tossing his gym bag on top of the pile of shoes by the doorway, Mark walks towards their kitchenette and sits next to Donghyuck on the floor by the sink. He’s got his neck craned towards the counter above them, and when Mark looks over their heads and finds a tray of freshly baked cookies cooling down, he knows something is off. The only baking Donghyuck does is stress-baking. 

“I tried to test my one rep max today and I'm already sore,” he replies, looking Donghyuck up and down. Still staring up ahead, his phone lies in his lap with his current favorite cat-themed game on screen, music playing through the quiet of the apartment. The hand that’s not lazily lying over his cell phone is having its nails bitten by Donghyuck’s mouth, as his teeth catch his middle fingernail and tug on it. 

Mark takes hold of it and pulls his fingers away from his lips, making Donghyuck finally look away from the cookie batch and face him. The smile he gets in return is weary, and Mark learns that he doesn't like the look of lethargy on him. “I love it when you talk gym rat to me,” he says, resting his cheek against the cabinet behind him. Half of his face smushed and half basking in the sunlight coming from their living room window; constantly half illuminated and half imagined, to Mark's pleasure. 

He brushes the teasing aside, remembering the baked goods cooling down on top of their heads. "You and Jaemin made cookies?"

"Just me," Donghyuck shakes his head. "Jaem dropped dead fifteen minutes into a game." _Neko Atsume_ 's melody is cut off when he blindly locks his phone, tucking it in his jeans' pocket. With that, silence makes itself home in the flat. 

Mark stares at the cookies. Donghyuck mindlessly presses his thumb to a beauty mark on Mark's neck. Jaemin snores. 

"What did you even make these with?" 

"A cup of flour. The one egg you had." A pause. "And what was left of your peanut butter jar."

Blinking, he looks back at Donghyuck, who is suddenly entirely too enthralled by the moles under his ear. “The entire jar?,” he asks uselessly.

“ _And_ your last egg. I'm a menace," he smiles, an unnatural quirk of his lips gracing him once again. He straightens up, cheek parting from the wooden surface behind him, but not without it leaving a crease or two on his skin. Mark traces them with his eyes and commits the redness of his face to memory. "Sorry, babe. I’ll get you another jar.”

 _That's not the point,_ he wants to say. What he does, though, is sit still while Donghyuck draws figure eights on the side of his neck with calloused fingers and bitten nails. 

Here's why they are doomed: Donghyuck's heartened through touch and craves comfort like nothing else, and Mark doesn't know how to cater to either. No good with advice nor too experienced with affection, he comes away empty-handed and clueless. What could he ever have to offer?

Mark purses his lips, thinks for a moment, and settles for what he knows how to do best—distract and postpone. "Since it's your fault I can't have a PB&J now, you're gonna let me have half of that cookie batch and sit through my Crash Landing On You rewatch."

Donghyuck's eyes flit over his face, and Mark hopes he can find whatever he needs to latch on to there. When he speaks again, his voice has an ease to it that wasn't there before. "I'd love that, actually."

Mark puts the peanut butter cookies in his best Tupperware¹, Donghyuck moves Jaemin from where he's sleeping on the couch², and together they eat all twenty-two cookies and get through half of the drama³.

¹an old plastic ice cream container that still smells like vanilla

²he rolls him over until he slides off, and throws a blanket on top of him when he continues to snore quietly at the foot of the couch 

³Donghyuck watches attentively; Mark asks himself what will happen when drama marathons and homemade cookies aren’t enough to fix damage. When it's time to talk and Donghyuck finds out he's perpetually tongue-tied.

**4.**

Mark soon learns Donghyuck's dates usually fall under one of two categories: fully planned, seven-hour long day outs where they go from park to coffee shop to local art show to _ad infinitum_ , or a quick bite at a fast food place in between work shifts and classes which he always conveniently forgets to bring his wallet to.

This—if it can even be considered a date—falls somewhere in the second category, Mark thinks as he pulls open the door to find Donghyuck with takeout from Mark's favorite ramen place, ten minutes after receiving a _on my way overrr i got food!!_ text and an hour before they are supposed to meet up with their friends to have a drink.

"Thanks for going all the way over to Honne's," Mark notes, pushing off the bed a grease-stained bag now filled with empty plastic containers and cardboard boxes. Donghyuck is already lying on his back, busy chewing the last of his noodles.

"It was on the way," he shrugs, as if Mark doesn't already know he's a lying liar who lies. He rolls over until he's lying on his front, one arm now thrown over Mark's lap. "Also, who says I got this for you? I for one _love_ Honne's." 

The beam that spreads over Mark's face does so unwillingly, winning over the need to hold back his grin and take the bait. "You're too sweet," he says instead. One of his hands runs down Donghyuck's hair, who slightly leans into the touch with a smile of his own. 

Stretching forward, he tilts his head until his nose presses against Mark's arm and he can place a kiss on his pulse point. "Only for you." 

Mark makes a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat as he lies down next to him, turning to the side so they're face to face. "No, you're too good," he sighs, closes his eyes, and somehow still feels Donghyuck everywhere. Arm over his hip, heat next to him, shampoo scent in his pillow and in his lungs. "You're too much, Hyuck." He leans forward, mouth parted and seeking, and meets Donghyuck's cupid bow and upper lip. A minute later finds Mark laying on his back with Donghyuck sat on his lap, a pair of hands reaching under a shirt so far it bunches up around ribs and ten fingers grasping skin only to weaken their grip and slip with a scratch.

Mark's mind is both as clear and as plagued as possible. He touches and kisses and wants relying on anything but thought, and yet he finds himself thinking he wants Donghyuck to want him more than he wants to have him. How does that work, when he knows he has Donghyuck _because_ he wants Mark? Because he does. Mark thinks. Probably. 

The burst of honesty from earlier resurfaces, and its remnants climb up his throat and out.

"I need you all the time," he says, lips brushing across Donghyuck's cheek, pressing kisses to it while he runs his mouth. "I'm sorry, I just need you always."

Mark's lips graze the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth when he chuckles, shoulders going up and down. "Why are you sorry, baby?" 

He's brought back down for another kiss, one he pulls away from when he gets no answer. "Mark?"

Beneath him, Mark breathes heavily and shakes his head, not even aware what it is he's denying. "Sorry," he repeats, a voice break splitting the word in two.

Donghyuck looks down at him, biting the inside of his cheek—a habit of Mark's he picked up. After a moment, he parts his lips, closes them, and then there's that voice Mark loves—the mellow, whisper-like one—saying, "You know I need you too, right?"

The swarm of thoughts pulling off petals singing _"he loves me, he loves me not"_ gradually quiet down. He swallows hard, and feels like he has to ask again anyway. "All the time?"

Donghyuck hums, now looking somewhat amused. "Always." After leaning down for a peck, he straightens up with a cheeky smile in place and adds, "Sorry."

It's then that Mark's phone starts vibrating on the bedside table, having set an alarm before they started eating so they wouldn't be late to meet up with their friends. Donghyuck sits back on Mark's lap to reach for the phone and hit snooze, just to leave it next to them on the bed.

"We should get going," Mark breathes out, placing one hand on either of Donghyuck's thighs to prompt him to get off and up. 

" _Or_ ," Donghyuck starts, "I text Renjun we're running late and you let me have my way with you for the next," his eyes dart to the phone beside them that's still showing Mark's lockscreen, "thirteen minutes?" 

Mark raises his eyebrows, but his hands are already climbing, squeezing their way up, still touching without thinking. "Didn't you want to get there a little earlier tonight 'cause you haven't seen Renjun all month?"

"And I haven't seen your dick since Tuesday," he pouts in response. "I can miss both of my favorite boys at the same time."

"Dude, gross—"

Donghyuck's already got Mark's phone in his hold, grabbing his hand to press his pointer finger to the touch ID. Mark glimpses the screen lit up, and Donghyuck brings his fingertip to his mouth afterwards to nip at it before letting his hand drop down and land on the mattress.

Mark lies on the bed under him, watches him type and smile and run his tongue across his teeth—another habit he picked up—and he can only think _sorry_.

**5.**

"Markie hyung, there you are! Small world." 

Mark jumps in his seat, looking up from his phone just in time to see Jaemin pull out the chair next to his and take a seat. He looks around, checking the classroom is still half-empty and the clock on the wall reads there's seven minutes left for his class to start.

"Uh, hey? What are you doing here?" he asks, because as cool as taking a class together with a friend is, Mark is ninety seven percent sure Jaemin, a bioengineering major, does not take Renaissance Literature.

Jaemin's thumbing through his notebook, taking in his folded post-its and hurried scrawls.

"I had lunch with Hyuck today," is what he answers with. To his credit, Mark only goes slightly pale in the face. "You know, your boyfriend. Guy you're dating. Whatever."

Mark sneaks another look at the clock. Six minutes and something seconds left.

Playing with the pen he's holding, he clicks it over and over while he smiles at Jaemin, wishing the tick-tock coming from the front of the classroom would pick up the pace. "Cool. How is he?"

His friend lets the notebook fall shut, glancing up at him, and shrugs. "Why don't you ask him yourself? Since he says he hasn't heard from you these last couple days."

Mark clears his throat, rearranging himself on his seat, but Jaemin pays him no mind as he goes on. 

"You aren't texting back or picking up calls. I thought, _Mark hyung? No way_. I told him to drop by the flat to ask you what the hell is up but he's too scared you're ghosting him 'cause you're gonna dump him. That's what he said, verbatum," he relays. Mark doesn't even register Jaemin butchering up the latin, because he doesn't know exactly what he was trying to achieve by avoiding Donghyuck, but making him think he wants to break up was not it. 

Jaemin's voice, still droning on, comes back into focus. "—and you should have seen him, sitting there all sad and pathetic. I never thought I would call Donghyuck pathetic, even less over your ass, but apparently pigs fly and all it takes to kill Hyuck's confidence is being left on read by a guy who reads poetry for fun.”

Jaemin’s words have Mark’s eyes searching until they zero in on a scribble on the top right corner of his notebook's cover, written in black ink over the same-colored background, making it so you could only tell it was there if you were looking for it. Clock and class and uneasiness forgotten, he runs his index finger over it, tracing over the words _sonnet xi_ engraved on it—the one poem so far that Donghyuck actually liked. 

He recalls the Sunday before last, when Donghyuck leaned over his shoulder while Mark was rereading one of his favorites _,_ and he waited patiently for the usual complaint about how _none of it makes sense_. What he got instead was a couple seconds of silence, and then, “Huh, this one’s nice.” He remembers skimming through pages the next day, marking the ones with the poems he thought Donghyuck would like. He thinks of the book, yellowed and worn and penciled on, currently laying on his bedside table waiting to be handed down to Donghyuck. He thinks of his boy, sat next to him in the student lounge a few days later with Mark’s notebook on one hand and a black pen on the other, going over the words two, three, four times so they would dent the cardboard.

"I don't wanna dump him," he mutters, clicking the pen one last time to lightly outline Donghyuck’s words. 

Beside him, Jaemin knocks their shoulders together, causing the ball point to skid off the indented phrase and stain Mark’s fingers. "Then what's up?"

 _I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face_ , Neruda writes. Donghyuck had loved that line, giggling in Mark’s ear whilst saying, “Do any couples have like, their poem like they have their song and stuff? ‘Cause this is our poem.” 

Mark had laughed along, turning to him with an amused face that prompted Donghyuck to go on.

“Nobody has a more arrogant face than yours,” he had said. “And nobody wants to eat you whole more than me.”

He thinks back to three days ago, Donghyuck waiting for him outside his Creative Writing class where Mark was sitting for a midterm, encircling his waist with his arms as soon as he walked out and teasing him while he dramatically recited, “I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.”

Mark laid in bed that night and replayed that moment over and over again. Donghyuck with his head thrown back, talking way too loud, laughing at him and with him when people looked their way. What if he didn’t get it when Mark said he needed him all the time? Because Mark does crave him. His mouth and his voice and his hair, and so much more that sonnet can’t even come close to encasing because it wasn’t written with Donghyuck in mind. What does he do then, if he wakes up one day and Donghyuck is still laughing at him and with him and nothing else, and he realizes Mark wants more than just that?

When he awoke the next day to a good morning text and yesterday replayed all over again in his head, Mark put his phone back down and rolled out of bed, heading straight for the shower.

Looking up from his desk, he comes face to face with Jaemin for a second time, who is already staring at him. He’s somehow certain the tick-tock of the clock actually sped up, and without knowing how to put everything into words he settles for saying, "I like him so much."

Jaemin hums. "And that's an issue because…?"

Mark stays quiet, breaking eye contact after a few lengthy seconds. 

"You're having a crisis 'cause you're into your boyfriend. Like you should." A sigh. "You christians are a weird bunch."

Suddenly, Jaemin’s up on his feet, stretching his arms above his head with a groan. “Okay, you can’t say I didn’t try. For the record, what I’m about to do is not my idea whatsoever and I’m simply abiding by Renjun’s instructions.” Mark frowns and opens his mouth to ask, but before he can get anything out a hand is thrust in front of his face. "I'm exiling you from our flat until you man up and reach out to Hyuck." Jaemin’s hand flexes and relaxes, making grabby motions. "Your keys.”

Mark gapes. Now he’s heartbroken _and_ temporarily homeless. "For real? Dude, where am I supposed to sleep tonight?"

"At home," Jaemin smiles. "After you talk to Hyuck."

"What if I try and he—but he doesn't answer or pick up?" Mark stammers, grasping for straws.

"Not my problem. You have two legs. Jog your little heart out to his dorm." 

Whining, he sticks his hand inside his satchel’s front pocket, pulling out his keys and handing them over. Jaemin picks them up with two fingers as if they were dirty and drops them inside his backpack. He's about to take his leave when he holds up a finger and stumbles back the half step he had already taken towards the door.

"One more thing." He drops his bag on Mark’s desk and rummages around for a bit. "Hyuck wanted me to give you this. Hell if I know why," he says, eventually taking something out and handing it to him. "Probably part of your weird mating ritual, don't wanna know. Just—Please get your head out of your ass and text him back. Whatever you got going on, Donghyuck doesn’t deserve to get the short end of the stick.” 

Mark doesn't answer right away. He's too busy staring at the jar of peanut butter in his hands. 

Maybe Donghyuck does get it. 

(When he finally looks up, Jaemin's gone, the clock reads T-minus two minutes and his professor's walking into the classroom. His fingers fly across his phone screen as he opens Donghyuck's chat and starts off his text with _baby im sorry can i go over tonight? im sorry i ghosted you ill bring over honne's and well talk it out and we can catch up with narcos 2gether cause i also watched like two episodes without you im sooo sorr—_ )

**+1**

“You look constipated.”

Startled out of his daydream, reality welcomes Mark back with the realization that they're already parked outside of Donghyuck's mom's house, ignition switched off and his boyfriend turned to him in the driver's seat, looking unimpressed.

“I _feel_ constipated,” he answers honestly. Donghyuck makes a show of rolling his eyes. He reaches out with his right arm so he can flick Mark's forehead, who ows before he's even been hit.

"Seriously, what are you worried about? My mom already knows you. You've got her under your People Over Forty Love Me spell—I swear she brings you up in conversation more than I do."

Mark shrugs, gaze downcast, and leans forward until his forehead is almost resting on the glove compartment, his body bent in half. Donghyuck imitates him, moving so his head is leaning on the steering wheel and his eyes are level enough to search for Mark's.

"Do you think..." he pauses, wets his lips, and immediately decides to make a U-turn, lifting up the wine bottle resting on his lap, "...that your mom's gonna like the rosé?" 

Resorting to violence for a second time, Donghyuck pinches his arm in irritation, ignoring the shriek he lets out. "Mark, I swear to God _._ We've talked about this. Tell me what's up or you're walking back to your damn apartment with an empty stomach." 

"Sorry, sorry." Mark leans forward the rest of the way and rubs his forehead against the dashboard in frustration, not caring that he's probably messing up his hair. "It's nothing, I was just thinking of—" 

" _Mark_."

He knows that tone. He turns his face back to the side, making eye contact with Donghyuck leaning on the wheel, and sees one side of his mouth quirk up in reassurance. He offers out a hand, the same one he flicked and pinched him with, and Mark takes it in his over the gearshift, letting the wine drop back on his lap.

"Do you think we'll make this work? Us? In the long run?," he manages to get out in one breath, feeling like an idiot right after.

Donghyuck wouldn't be bringing him home for dinner with his mom if he didn't see a future for them. If there’s one thing he’s learnt about him these last months, is that there may be nothing practical about Donghyuck, but his every act is purposeful even when it may seem otherwise: never leaves the house without a plan, never talks without an aim, never taunts, swears or kisses without reason. He wouldn’t have taken forty minute detours to get him his favorite takeout, memorized a single poem or even wasted a McDonald’s coupon on them if he hadn’t seen something there, if he didn’t think they would last—at least enough to try.

And still, Mark needs to hear it. Before he walks in there and hands Donghyuck’s mom the wrong wine (because Donghyuck insisted until he gave in that she likes rosé but Mark _knows_ her favorite is actually pink moscato) and before Mark lets him know his brother’s gonna be in town next week and asks if he wants to meet him. This is the last bit of aid he needs to seek out before he lets himself fantasize about all their possible afters. 

Donghyuck lets go of his hand to fix his fringe, brushing back a longer strand of hair Mark’s hair gel couldn’t tame. His face goes nth shades more tender, indulging his boyfriend’s sudden need for comfort. "Well, we’re gonna have to. I already promised you a Beagle, remember?" 

He never speaks without purpose: Mark laughs, open-mouthed and high pitched, and adds amidst his laughter, "And Iceland."

Donghyuck smiles, chuckling along with him as his hand travels from Mark’s hair to the place where his jawline and cheek meet. "And Iceland."

Their moment is interrupted when Donghyuck’s head slips from the top of the steering wheel and lands on the horn with a thud, making it honk for an instant. They both jump in surprise, sitting up straight before their eyes meet and they burst into laughter again, both doubled over with the force of it. It’s only a whole minute later that Mark’s able to get it under control, still giggling when he outstretches one hand to rub at the spot Donghyuck hit on the wheel. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he grins, and seems to hesitate only for a second before he tags on, "We'll be fine." There's no _I promise you_ etched onto it, but it holds that air of certainty Donghyuck carries with him. There's no doubt in his end. Mark decides there’s no reason for there to be any on his either. 

Donghyuck's eyes deviate to somewhere behind Mark, and he puts two and two together the next moment. "Your mom is looking out the window, right?"

"Yup."

"We shouldn't keep her waiting." 

As they unbuckle their seatbelts, Mark takes another look at Donghyuck, thinks _I want to kiss him_ , and lets himself do just that. He curls a hand around Donghyuck's nape and pulls him forward for a peck, and for once he doesn't think of collisions, apologies or inevitable ends. Instead, there’s just one thing on his mind, voicing it out as soon as they part. "If you got it wrong and your mom actually likes pink moscato and that ruins my golden boy reputation I'm gonna ask her to pull out the baby pics and—"

"You do that and I’ll actually make you walk back to your house, you fucker.”

**Author's Note:**

> neruda’s [love sonnet xi](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/9927/love-sonnet-xi/) for anyone interested.  
> thank you for reading! kudos & comments are always welcome ♡


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